From October 20-22, by the banks of Shanghai's Huangpu River, the 2026 Sustainable Global Leaders Conference returns once again. Nobel and Turing Award winners will take the stage to discuss the future and trends of technology, and the internet-famous professors who "rescue" people from anxiety and the era of involution—Macfarlane and Xiang Biao—will hold a live dialogue!
Limited seats available, first come first served. Let us embark on a sustainable journey together! [Click to register] Reporter: Xie Tao Editor: Tang Yuan Image source: Provided by the organizer.
Outdoor sports consumption has become a rapidly evolving, hot business at the forefront. From weekend hiking, suburban camping, and trail running to skiing, surfing, and frisbee, outdoor sports are quickly breaking through niche circles, entering broader areas of life, and opening up larger market space. In 2025, China's outdoor sports consumption reached over 800 million visits, with total outdoor sports consumption exceeding 1 trillion yuan. It is no longer the poetry and distant places of a few, but increasingly a lifestyle for more and more people, and a new "industrial narrative."
From October 15 to 18, a national-level "outdoor bureau" kicked off in Beijing. As China's only national-level outdoor sports industry event, the 2026 China Outdoor Sports Industry Conference is hosted by the All-China Sports Federation, jointly organized by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sports, China Sports Industry Group, and others. It "summoned" decision-makers, investors, and researchers from the domestic culture, sports, and tourism sectors. As a specially invited media outlet by the organizer, reporters from National Business Daily were on the ground throughout the industry thematic seminars and resource promotion meetings, attempting to capture the latest trends in the outdoor consumer market and industry transformation trends through conversations with a host of "outdoor veterans."
Mao Daqing carries many prominent labels. He formerly served as Senior Vice President of Vanke Group, participated in and led multiple large-scale real estate and urban renewal projects, and has also published and translated numerous works. But for more than a decade, he has been more active as a "super runner,"穿梭ing through major and minor international races and emerging outdoor sports. As early as 2013, Mao Daqing participated in his first official full marathon—the Prague Marathon—and in the following years, he successively completed top marathon events around the world, becoming one of the representative figures of Chinese marathons. In his words, "He loves that feeling of collective forward movement—it's pure and powerful." At the interview site, he occasionally shared his race stories and outdoor tech gear. From marathons to trail running to triathlons, Mao Daqing has run in various natural environments including deserts, mountains, and polar regions. He has always believed that "various large-scale events represented by marathons have flourished domestically in recent years. Events have transformed from simple sports competitions into cultural calling cards that drive tourism, consumption, and city image. At the same time, different demand layers have differentiated—some people are starting to pursue longer distances and different play modes."
Image source: Provided by the organizer. Taking the UTP Park 100 event as an example, last November he and Yu Miao assembled a team and successfully organized the "UTP Park 100—2025 Longtan Zhonghu 100-Kilometer Challenge" at Longtan Zhonghu Park, successfully introducing certification from the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU), bringing the long-absent Beijing ultramarathon back and making it a landmark event in the domestic running community. "Those differentiated event projects that can meet the needs of different groups are still scarce commodities in the market, and they are also our current focus," Mao Daqing stated. He has always believed that "in an era of accelerating technological iteration and continuous consumption transformation, people are increasingly focusing on lifestyle and quality of life. The outdoor sector has many segmented tracks full of industrial value and economic value."
Discussing the trends in the outdoor consumer market over the past two years, Toread Vice President Han Ye shared, "The most obvious change in outdoor consumption is that it has shifted from a professional hobby to a lifestyle, and at the same time from general growth to clear differentiation." In fact, as outdoor demographics and scenarios rapidly expand, demand has also stratified accordingly. "Outdoor is no longer just mountaineering and traversing—urban light outdoor activities and family camping have become daily routines. As participation broadens, demand splits into two streams: professional players have demanding performance requirements, while mass users value lightness, ease of use, and affordability. Products stuck in the middle, relying on concepts and appearance, are being squeezed most obviously," Han Ye pointed out.
So how should we understand the current market situation? In Han Ye's view, whether brand premium can hold depends on the technology and manufacturing capabilities behind it. Intelligence, lightweight design, and environmental sustainability have also shifted from bonus points to thresholds. Supply is growing faster than demand, international brands are concentrating their entry into China, local new brands are growing rapidly, yet consumer budgets are not growing in sync—the distribution of growth dividends needs to be readjusted. "At the same time, outdoor equipment has strong durable goods attributes and long repurchase cycles, while new project popularity cycles are getting shorter and shorter. Combined, this easily becomes trial-style consumption. Add homogenization on top, and relying on OEM, traffic投放, and low-price volume to achieve scale—once traffic costs rise, raw material prices increase, and inventory turnover slows, profits get squeezed from both ends," she said.
Over the past few years, leading companies in the outdoor sector have successively made strategic adjustments, significantly increasing investment in R&D design and brand operations to cope with a more complex market environment.
Image source: Provided by the interviewee. Discussing Toread's strategic adjustments, Han Ye stated, "Toread has been in outdoor for 27 years. Our judgment is—the industry is not not growing; rather, the threshold for growth has risen. So the adjustment is not contraction, but concentrating resources on harder things." "We chose to make the outdoor main business deeper, not wider. The most critical step is launching the 'outdoor + chip' dual main business, making smart equipment the intersection point: the chip end solves perception, computing power, and algorithms; the outdoor end provides real scenarios and user understanding. The combination of the two is smart equipment."
In the new transformation period of outdoor consumption, well-known outdoor brands at home and abroad are continuously reshuffling, positioning, and reshaping in the Chinese market. Some say this is now the era of "brand sovereignty." Sanfo Outdoors, which has witnessed the entire process of China's outdoor industry from germination to explosion, has faced enormous challenges in recent years in transitioning from a retailer to a brand management company. "For Sanfo, we are very experienced in channels and not unfamiliar with products. Although there was a period when we did not vigorously develop or research our own brands, we have cooperated with many brands, and products are not a great challenge for us," Sanfo Outdoors Board Secretary Qin Yamin told reporters. "Facing today's fierce competitive environment, our challenge mainly comes from brand operations, and more specifically, how to achieve differentiated brand operations."
Image source: Provided by the organizer. Unlike traditional channel distributors, brand owners need more comprehensive overall construction capabilities. "In our strategic transformation, we adjusted our internal company structure, dividing different business units by brand, with each brand having a direct responsible person. In the process of doing full-chain X-BIONIC, we began to learn how to truly operate a brand," Qin Yamin shared. "Now our main energy and resources will be placed on this brand." It is reported that in 2021, Sanfo Outdoors completed the acquisition of all trademark patents in China for the Swiss sports black technology brand X-BIONIC, and enjoys complete R&D and sales rights—this early outdoor collection store truly began to do brands. As Sanfo Outdoors founder Zhang Heng said, "I think what is truly decisive is that we acquired X-BIONIC."
In addition, reporters noted that Sanfo Outdoors in recent years has also acquired international brands such as the Swedish mountain-style brand Klättermusen, Nordic outdoor aesthetics brand HOUDINI, and Italian handmade footwear brand CRISPI through joint ventures and exclusive agencies. From 2015 to 2024, China's total sports industry scale grew from 1.7104 trillion yuan to 3.8421 trillion yuan, a cumulative increase of approximately 124.6%, with a compound annual growth rate of 9.4%. The growth rate of industrial added value was even more significant—from 549.4 billion yuan to 1.6033 trillion yuan, an increase of approximately 191.8%, indicating continuously rising industrial added value. In this process, the participation scale of 400 million visits, tens of thousands of brands and events, and the full chain spanning equipment manufacturing and cultural tourism consumption have continued to grow.
In the view of Professor Wang Yuxiong, Director of the Sports Economics Research Center at Central University of Finance and Economics, "The sports industry is an industry with the potential to maintain high-speed growth over a long period. Currently, China's sports industry added value accounts for only just over 1% of GDP. We believe that over a long period, it still has great growth space and capacity. In the outdoor sports field, a full industrial chain pattern covering equipment, venues, events, and services is accelerating its formation."
Image source: Provided by the organizer. For many years, Wang Yuxiong has been deeply engaged in research on sports industry macro policies, the economic and social impact of sports value, and the trends in sports consumption. He has participated in policy formulation discussions and research for sports industry policies by the General Office of the State Council, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the General Administration of Sport of China. At the event, he focused on sharing with reporters the exploration of pathways for coordinated development of the outdoor sports industry chain. In the view of Wang Yuxiong, Director and Professor of the Sports Economics Research Center at Central University of Finance and Economics, "Integrated development is the comparative advantage of China's sports industry development. It can not only better meet consumer demand but also help more market entities find profitable business models. Moreover, future integration will be more diverse and in-depth, evolving from integration under market mechanisms and contractual mechanisms to integration within organizations." Although in recent years the added value growth rate of the sports goods manufacturing industry has continued to outperform GDP, Wang Yuxiong emphasized that sports manufacturing still faces the challenge of transformation and upgrading. "Sports manufacturing must extend toward both ends of the 'smile curve,' strengthening brand marketing and R&D design, in order to achieve sustainable development."
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